Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Mad Hatter

by digby

I wrote a post a couple of days ago quoting Admiral Henry Harris, the commander of Guantanamo asying there are no innocent men imprisoned there and that those who committed suicide were committing an "act of asymmetric warfare waged against us." It struck me as absurd that hanging yourself in your cage could be considered an act of war and I thought this guy was likely taking the notion of "suiciders" to some ridiculous conclusion.

But I came upon another quote from him saying something even more absurd:

Rear Admiral Harris is adamant that the people in his care are well looked after and are enemies of the United States.

He told me they use any weapon they can - including their own urine and faeces - to continue to wage war on the United States.

Where do they find these nutballs to send down there to Guantanamo? First Geoffrey Miller and now this kook. Apparently he believes that any act of resistence by these people who are imprisoned in cages is an act of war.

It seems to me that far too many Americans have worked themselves into some sort of hysteria, including this loon running Gitmo. When heavily guarded people in cages throwing feces is considered assymetrical warfare, we have gone down the rabbit hole. (Either that or a couple of toddlers I know are in training to be the next Osama bin Laden.) Does this man think he's actually fighting terrorists down there?

The men being held in Guantanamo might have been terrorists, but when they are under the total control of the most powerful military in the world they are most definitely not combatants, they are prisoners. It's not an act of war to dislike your jailers or resist your imprisonment. That's absurd.

These people need to get a grip before they give themselves heart attacks from irrational fear. Those prisoners are just human beings not aliens from outer space.